I'm John Batsu with my colleague Cleopascal of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

Where in the world is Cleo?

She's in New Delhi right now, a long way from the Indo-Pacific, but it's part of the Indo-Pacific command.

All of these island, Commonwealth, sovereign states are at issue between the US and its allies with China.

The game is get a state to declare allegiance to Beijing and not Taipei.

And therefore you've influenced decision makers and you can move in with your apparatus.

That's the game.

Right now we're going to a small series of your apparatus, that's the game.

Right now we're going to a small series of atolls with an island called Tuvalu, population overall,

all of the territory is about 12,000 according to the most recent summit.

It has a prime minister now in question.

It is part of the Commonwealth, so Charles III is monarch. Cleo, Tuvalu just held an election.

What to take from an election where, with 12,000 people total,

we're looking at 6,000 voting, good for them, and at the same time there is no parties,

there are only 16 members of parliament, and there's been a surprising change of direction. The Prime Minister has lost his seat.

What does this mean in terms of the contest between China and the US?

So in this case, in zone the US has delegated the strategic point position to Australia.

And it's been, it's hard to say it's been anything other than a disaster.

This is, you know, the Solomon's recognized Taiwan and then in 2019 it flipped to China. The thing with Kiribati which is Tuvalu's neighbor

Nauru just flipped these are all countries that you know the Australians are supposed to supposedly taking the point on and in the case

of Tuvalu a couple months ago they signed a deal with this prime minister who's lost his seat which which was a just a lousy deal

you know Tuvalu has is very concerned about what's going to happen with sea level rise in the conception and their

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